


Gaz the Jungle Girl's Bad Day

by ZimsMostLoyalServant



Series: Invader Zim Jungle AU [1]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: African Folklore, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Jungle, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, I just wrote it, Karma - Freeform, Public Humiliation, Public Nudity, Role Reversal, Story outline by a friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26932024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZimsMostLoyalServant/pseuds/ZimsMostLoyalServant
Summary: In a universe where the whole world is a jungle, Gaz is the most feared person in the village. However, a little divine intervention is about to give her an overdue lesson in humility.*Commissioned by a friend on Fanfiction.Net*
Relationships: Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), Dib (Invader Zim)/Other(s)
Series: Invader Zim Jungle AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965145
Kudos: 1





	Gaz the Jungle Girl's Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> Another one of my older, if more recent, stories from FFN. Like with "New Adventures: Mature Edition", this was written off of an outline drawn up by my friend The Cowardly Christian, so it's a bit more mature and wackier than my usual stuff. To that end, even if it's not specified in the writing, please assume that all the characters are aged up to at least 18.
> 
> Also, it's worth noting that this story was written before "Enter the Florpus" came out and gave me a more nuanced view on Gaz, back when I just outright hated her. So, like with the "New Adventures" series, assume that this story's version of Gaz is based on the show rather the comics or movie.
> 
> Finally, it's worth noting that TCC has continued to give me prompts based on this Jungle AU, so I'm going to be posting it all here on AO3. If you're interested, keep your eyes peeled.
> 
> Read on!

We all know the world of Invader Zim. A near-future, somewhat crapsack society of very stupid people, totally oblivious to anything unusual or out of the normal, even when it's staring them right in the face. In this world, Zim is an alien, out to conquer the Earth for the uncaring leaders of his intergalactic empire, with his only opposition coming from Dib, a young schoolboy and paranormal investigator, who keeps up the good fight despite ridicule from all corners. We all know the story of this world.

But this isn't that world.

No, this is another world, one a few twists and turns of the multiverse away from the main Invader Zim universe. This world was much more primal than IZ-Prime, in a quite literal sense — most of the planet was jungle, practically from pole to pole. And for anyone who would question the validity of a single biome planet, please direct your attention to 99 percent of the planets in _Star Wars_. Same principle here, so move along.

Anyway, not only was this world covered in jungle, but human society had grown to reflect that. This was not an industrialized world of science and advanced machinery. Communities were small tribal villages, the wheel and sail were the height of technology, and clothing was a rather stereotypically simple affair. That is to say, everyone wore simple fur and leather — loincloths for the men, leopard skin bikinis for the women. How there were enough leopards to go around for everyone, no one really knew or cared.

The focus of our story, the tale that brings us to this alternate world, begins in one of the larger above-mentioned villages. Size aside, it was typical of the average human settlement in this reality. It was built within a clearing in the jungle, not far from a water supply. The exact center of the clearing was a market and meeting place. Outwards from that were the gardens, domesticated animal enclosures, and small hut homes of the average villager. Beyond that, at the outer rim of the village, were the homes of the tribe's leaders and most influential members, built atop the trees lining the boundaries between the village itself and the surrounding rainforest.

It was one of these treehouses that serves as the origin point of this story. Sitting more than thirty feet in the air, built amongst the twisted and interlocked branches of two trees that had grown around each other, it was the largest and most grandiose of all the homes in the village. It was actually several levels tall, and each level, along with the base of the conjoined trees, were lined with a series of perpetually-lit torches, giving the whole structure a slightly off-putting feeling.

This was all fitting, of course, as this was the home of Membrane, the village's witchdoctor. A strange man who always kept his face hidden by a wooden mask, he was never the less venerated by the rest of the village for his wisdom and ability to craft potions to help heal the sick and infirm. Though that being said, he was different from other witchdoctors in that he absolutely refused to partake in any rituals aimed at fighting off spirits or other such "superstitious nonsense".

Yes, even in a world where science was practically nonexistent, Membrane preferred it over belief in the paranormal. Go figure.

Another multiversal constant was that Membrane lived with his two children. One of them was currently in his room, looking over a variety of hunting tools, preparing to set out on a mission. Like his counterparts in most universes, this version of Dib was an object of ridicule in his community, for mostly the same reasons — an oversized head, and belief in the paranormal. More specifically, paranormal beliefs that were even more outlandish and hard to swallow than the typical tribal superstitions. Like, for example, his insistent claims that the strange green boy living in a cave just outside the village was an evil Anhanguera bent on destroying the village, when he was _clearly_ just suffering from an ailment brought about by not making the proper ritual sacrifices underneath a harvest moon. Duh.

But Dib, just like most other versions of himself, was not deterred by the disdain he was held in. Hence his current preparations to go hunting.

"This is the day, I know it," he said to himself, inspecting a particularly large net before folding it up and sticking it in a leather sack, "I'll finally catch Zim and expose him for the monster he is, for everyone to see! And then, I'll finally-"

"Shut up already!" a familiar voice suddenly said from behind him, making him jump in surprise. Turning around, he saw his sister standing behind him. Like Dib, Gaz was virtually identical in both appearance and personality to other versions of herself in other realities. Which was to say that she was anger and violence incarnated as young girl nearing adulthood. The only real difference at first glance was that, rather than a dress or shirt/skirt combo, she was wearing a leopard bikini just like every other girl in this universe, albeit one that had been dyed purple to match her hair.

"No one cares about your stupid obsession," she said, glaring at her brother, "Plus, Zim's too stupid to ever actually do any real damage. And even if he does, who cares? People are all moronic jerks — whatever happens to them is their own fault."

"You know, if you were a little less pessimistic, people might like you more," Dib said, in a rare moment of standing up for himself.

"Like I care if people like me," Gaz snorted, cracking open one eye to glare at him, "They fear me, which means they respect me. But if you want to keep being the village laughingstock, go ahead, fine by me. Just be _quiet_ about it. Or else."

With that final threat, Gaz turned around and walked out of the room, heading down the stairs towards the main level of the house, which served as a common room. Settling on one of the benches in the middle of the room, she turned her attention to the items on the table in front of her, and went back to what she had been doing before — tending to her own hunting tools.

You see, in a world like this, there was obviously no such thing as video games. As such, Gaz needed something else to do in order to vent her frustrations and boredom in a controlled way. In this case, it meant hunting. Not for food or even bragging rights, mind you, but for fun. She especially liked catching smaller prey, like monkeys, as she could then tie them up to dangle from trees, and use them as target practice. It was so much fun to watch them squirm as they tried to dodge projectiles and/or break free; just thinking about it now made her smirk.

Finishing tying together a snare line and testing the knot to make sure it was secure, Gaz set it aside and grabbed a wooden cup set to the side. Lifting it to her mouth, she took a sip of its contents, a mixture of several different kinds of berries. It was her favorite drink, and the one thing guaranteed to always calm and sedate her.

So it was quite unfortunate for Dib that he chose that moment to come running down the stairs. Because due to a combination of the weight of the equipment he was carrying and how fast he was moving, he stumbled and fell on the last step, causing the bag to go flying out of his grip. It shot through the air, smacking Gaz in the back of the head mid-sip. The force of the impact knocked her forward, slamming her into the table and shattering the cup.

There was a moment of tense silence, as Dib lay on his hands and knees on the floor, frozen in shock, eyes bugging out in fear at what he knew was about to come. And come it did, as Gaz slowly got up and turned around, revealing that the berry juice had been spilled all over her, running from her face all the way down to her stomach.

"Um, heh, sorry?" he offered weakly. In response, Gaz's eyes snapped open in one of the scariest death glares in the history of humanity (in any timeline).

"I'm going to tear your fucking head off!" she screeched, before throwing herself at him, and delivering an unholy beating.

It should be noted that this was a fairly regular occurrence. Even if the causes varied from situation to situation, the result was always the same — Gaz beating seven shades of hell out of her brother until she was satisfied, and then walking away to leave him writhing in pain. Just about everyone in the village could relate (having been in similar situations, if less frequently) but kept their heads down. There wasn't a person in the village willing to go out on a limb for Dib if it meant standing up to his sister and risking incurring her wrath.

Fortunately for him, this story's plot doesn't hinge on a "person" per se.

On another plane of existence, one that at the same time both was and wasn't part of the mortal reality, there lived a being. Mere human minds couldn't truly comprehend the nature of this divine entity; the best way to describe it would be to say that it was a giant spider, or a spider with the face of a man, or a man with spider legs, or all three at once. It rather depended on the angle of view.

This was Anansi, part-time spider deity and full-time trickster and storyteller. Right now, he was doing what he often did, viewing the world in search of stories that he could weave into tales and fables that could be retold by others and passed down through the ages. It just so happened that, in this case, his gaze had fallen on the Membrane home just in time to witness all the events described above.

To say that he was horrified and disgusted was a vast understatement. Anansi had lived for countless years and seen an equally immeasurable number of things, both good and evil. But this… what kind of person, practically a child no less, could have so much anger in them? Let alone be willing to inflict it so violently on a close family member, and for such petty reasons?

Morbid curiosity piqued, Anansi began manipulating his great web, pulling apart the fabric of reality around the Membrane siblings, so he could view their threads of fate. They had to be a higher reason for what he was seeing… ah, there it was. It seemed that somehow, things had gotten a little tangled, leaving Dib with a disproportionately high level of bad luck for one person, while Gaz inversely got just as high a level of good luck. Thus, this had created twin self-sustaining cycles of behavior — Dib was having bad things happen to him on such a regular basis that it had beat him down to a submissive who practically invited more bad stuff to happen to him, while Gaz had so much going for her without any sort of retribution for her bad actions that it just encouraged her to just keep acting horribly.

Clearly, this was a situation that needed rectifying. True, it didn't really fall under Anansi's purvey at first glance, but he just couldn't walk away from something like this.

"Besides," he mused, scratching at his chin/mandibles/abstract shape representing his face, "Knocking a vicious little bitch like this down to size? That would make one hell of a trick _and_ a decent story."

Mind made up, Anansi reached out with his hands/forelimbs/indescribable outer body parts, and began untangling the mess of twisted luck around Dib and Gaz. And not just restoring them to a normal disposition. No, that was too easy. It really seemed only fair to allow Dib the surplus of good luck his sister had enjoyed for so long, and thereby boost him up, while giving Gaz a taste of the absolute crap her brother had been living with. So, he was going to totally swap their threads around.

Back in the real world, Gaz had finished the main beating, and had moved onto adding some humiliation on top of it. She was now dangling him in the air by the back of his loincloth, which she had twisted around her hand, doubling the tightness and intensity of the subsequent wedgie. Dib squealed in pain as he kicked instinctively at the air, face turning purple in pain. None of which dissuaded Gaz one bit.

"Now then," she said firmly, "I think I've made my point, but let me reiterate — when you're carrying around your crap, you're going to watch where you're going. And if you _ever_ make me spill my drink again, I'll shove your head up your ass. Got it?"

She punctuated her point by giving the loincloth another twist, eliciting another high-pitched yelp from Dib.

"Y-yes," he managed to squeak out.

"Good. Now get out of my sight," Gaz said, tossing Dib aside and sending him flying across the room… and right out a window.

Which, it bears a reminder, was over thirty feet in the air.

"Shit!" Anansi exclaimed in rare profanity, as he watched Dib plummet. He worked his appendages, unraveling and retying the fate threads as fast as was possible even for a god. Finally, he was done, entwining Dib's life with an extraordinary amount of good luck, and not a moment too soon — just before Dib could hit the hard ground, he clipped a branch, causing him to bounce off to the side. This changed his trajectory enough that, rather than impacting the ground, he landed in a large bush, full of flowers but lacking thorns of any kind, that just so happened to growing right next to the base of the tree. Altogether, this broke his fall effectively enough that he'd be able to walk away effectively unharmed.

Seeing this, Anansi (unnecessarily) breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a close one. But he had pulled it off; Dib was safe, and his new luck was already kicking in. Now, all the Spider had to do was sit back and watch events unfold.

Meanwhile, Dib had stumbled out of the bush, disoriented by his fall. Shaking it off, he dusted himself off and looked down to check himself for damage… and immediately went red in the face. For he saw, to his horror, that at some point between being tossed out the window and hitting the ground, his loincloth had been ripped off, leaving him totally naked. Which would have been mortifying enough, if not for the fact that Dib, to put it bluntly, had a tiny dick. A fact he'd always tried to keep hidden, but was now fully on display.

Yelping in panic, Dib clasped his hands over his penis, embarrassment not at all aided by the fact that he really only needed one hand to cover it completely, and looked around desperately for some kind of cover. And froze, as he saw a large group the village's girls heading in his direction. Very pretty girls, girls who already mocked him for his beliefs and would make fresh mockery of his tiny junk, girls who would notice him any second because there was no time to hide…

It was at this point that Dib's new luck started to kick in. For while he was standing there, frozen in humiliated panic, a malaria mosquito happened to land on his head and bite him. In what way was this lucky, one might ask? Well, under normal circumstances, he would have gotten extremely sick and then died within a few days, unless he were to be treated by his father's medicine almost immediately after exposure. But with his current luck, it just so happened that the mosquito's bite injected directly into the large tumor in his head.

Oh yes, quick explanation about that last bit. You see, when Dib was very young and first started to investigate the paranormal, his father force-fed him a potion that was supposed to "cure him of his craziness". All it had actually done was cause him to develop a giant brain tumor. And while it was benign, it had had some unpleasant side effects that had contributed to making his life miserable. Namely, not only warping his head to an unusual size, but also blocking and absorbing a huge chunk of his body's blood and protein flow, resulting in his tiny cock.

But now, courtesy of the extremely high good luck that Anansi had provided Dib with, that tumor was suddenly directly injected with pure malaria. And, in a one-in-a-million chance that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, this caused the tumor to instantly wither and die, and freeing everything it had trapped. This had two immediate effects on Dib: the first, which he didn't immediately notice beyond a tingling in his head, was said head shrinking down to a normal size. The second, which he most certainly did notice, was when all that blocked body mass suddenly swam downward to where it rightfully belonged. Which in laymen's terms meant that his penis suddenly enlarged, growing to easily eleven or twelve inches.

To say that Dib was shocked by this sudden development would be a definite understatement. It was even enough to override the fear he felt at his impending humiliation, and outright make him forget about it for a moment, being unable to do anything but stare down at his suddenly massive dick.

"Oh my gods!" a feminine voice suddenly cried out, snapping Dib out of his shock and reminding him of his predicament. Looking up, he once again went red in the face as he saw that the crowd of girls were now standing only a few feet away, and were all staring at him. Some were slack-jawed and wide-eyed, others were clasping their hands over their mouths, giggling and blushing, but they all had their gazes locked squarely on his exposed crotch.

Dib was so paralyzed by shock and embarrassment, he didn't even bother trying to cover himself; he just stood there, staring at the girls staring at him, for a few moments of incredibly awkward silence. It was finally broken when the girl at the head of the group — Zita, the village chief's daughter — was the first person to snap out of her shock, a sly smirk forming on her face.

"Why, Dib," she said coyly, sauntering up to him, "I guess we all owe you an apology. Your head is definitely _not_ the biggest part of you. Though to be honest, right now it's looking pretty small, but maybe that's just by comparison."

Dib's blush somehow got even deeper as the other girls all giggled at Zita's comments. Finally snapped out of his shock, he reacted the only way he could, trying to cover himself up with his hands. But he found that this was a bit harder than it had been before, and it just encouraged more giggles and cooing.

"Aw, don't be shy, _big boy_ ," one of the other girls said.

"Yeah, you should be proud to be such a stud," another added.

"Come to think of it, I've never noticed before how muscular you are, too," Zita commented, reaching out and running a finger down Dib's chest. Speaking of whom, it should be noted that this was the most positive attention he'd gotten from members of the opposite sex, ever. So, despite the continued embarrassment still burning away at him, he couldn't help but feel a certain thrill of excitement run through him. Which made itself apparent as it suddenly became even harder to cover himself.

"Ooh, now he's even bigger!" one of the girls exclaimed happily. This set off a whole new round of giggles, and set Dib right back to feeling humiliated.

"Well, uh," he stammered, finally getting his voice back, "I'll, um, just be going now, so…"

"Don't be silly!" Zita said, smiling wolfishly, "We can't just leave you like this, it'd be rude. You should come with us."

"Yeah," another girl chimed in, "We can get you something to wear… eventually."

"In the meantime, we're going to meet that new girl who just moved here from that other village," a third girl said, "And I'm sure she'd just _love_ to meet you, and your not-so-little friend there."

Dib tried to protest, but soon found himself completely encircled by the group and being all but carried away by them, a not entirely unpleasant situation, he had to admit. And soon, thanks to their sudden fascination with him, he'd find himself meeting a blue-haired girl named Tak, in fact a succubus who was going to be quite interested in him… which sounds bad at first glance, but in fact would turn out to be a _very_ enjoyable experience for Dib, and the trigger for a series of events that would see him expose and defeat Zim, becoming a hero to the village and Tak taking him on as a favorite lover.

Ah, but we seem to have gotten very much offtrack from the original course this story set out on. So, let's rewind a bit, to right after Dib got thrown out that window.

Back up in the Membrane treehouse, Gaz watched her brother disappear out the window, her only reaction being an arched eyebrow. She hadn't intended that to happen, but she wasn't that broken up about it either. She doubted he'd die or be seriously injured, and any harm that did befall him would just be a constant reminder to not bother her.

With things, as far as she was concerned, over and done with, Gaz turned to the large barrel of water in the corner of the room so that she could wash the spilled juice off herself. However, before she got there, she paused, noticing that Dib's loincloth was still wrapped around her hand, having snapped off when she'd tossed him away.

"Ugh, gross. I don't need to be holding onto a rag soaked with his nut sweat," she muttered, trying to toss it away. Unfortunately for her, she soon found that all her twisting of the loincloth for that wedgie she'd given Dib had caused to tie into a tight knot around her fingers, leaving it stuck on her hands.

Growling, she grabbed the knot with her free hand and tried to untie it, but had no success. Now thoroughly annoyed, she marched over to a window (not the same one Dib fell out of, just to be clear) and reached out to a nearby small branch. She worked it underneath the knot and, bracing herself against the window, started pulling back. As she'd hoped, this caused the branch to tear through the material of the loincloth, letting it flutter away from her hand.

Watching it fall away, Gaz huffed and started to lean back away from the window… and that was when the termite damage to the part of the floor she was standing on caused it to cave in slightly. This of course threw her off balance and caused her to fall forward, and go tumbling out of the window.

Now, as stated before, this was a different window than Dib had been thrown out of. So, whereas Dib had had a clear drop to the ground, Gaz found herself smacking into branch after branch on the way down. On the bright side, this broke her fall enough that she wouldn't have to worry about the fall killing her, but it was still pretty damn painful.

There was also the fact that while Dib had fallen out of a side of the treehouse facing the village, Gaz fell out a side leaning out over the jungle. Which would explain why there just so happened to be an elephant randomly walking by beneath the house, having wandered over from a nearby river where it had been drinking. Which put it in just the right position for the falling Gaz to land on its head. The impact naturally startled the elephant; rearing up and trumpeting, it charged off into the jungle, carrying Gaz, who was still lying on its head.

"Stop, you dumb animal!" Gaz screamed. When the elephant didn't respond to the order, Gaz resorted to her standard reaction — violence. She grabbed ahold of the elephant's ears and tugged them back hard, hoping the pain would make it stop. This worked, but immediately backfired, as the elephant stopped and began shaking its head around viciously, trying to shake its unwanted passenger off.

It finally succeeded, as since Gaz didn't exactly have a good grip on anything, she was only able to hold on for a few moments. She flew through the air, hitting the ground and bouncing a few feet before coming to a stop. The elephant, having released its burden, snorted and huffed for a few minutes more, before it finally calmed down and walked away, leaving Gaz groaning on the ground.

"Stupid elephant," Gaz muttered, as she got to her feet, only to hiss in pain as she tried to stand up straight. Looking down, she saw that one of her legs had a large, nasty-looking bruise around the knee — whether from the fall out of the tree, hitting the elephant, or getting thrown off, she couldn't tell. Either way, it didn't appear as if anything was broken, but she'd be limping home.

Speaking of which, where was home?

"Damn it," Gaz cursed, as she looked around at her endless green surroundings, no sign of the village in sight, "Which way am I supposed to go?"

Before Gaz could even try to determine which direction led back to her village, a deep growling reached her ears. Turning around, she went pale at the sight of a large panther, which had just emerged from the trees a few yards away from her, and was now staring at her hungrily.

Now, Gaz was tough. But even in prime physical condition and with weapons, she'd think twice before facing off with a full-grown panther alone. Unarmed and with a busted up leg, however… well, she found herself in the rare position of actually being scared, and acted on it. She spun around and began running as fast as possible in the opposite direction from the panther — she didn't care if it was the right way back to the village or not, as long as it got her to safety.

Unfortunately, with her leg as injured as it was, her "running" was little more than a moderately-fast shambling walk. And she could hear the panther moving, stalking her, no doubt deciding to play with her a bit before moving in for the kill. Desperate, she ran towards the nearest tree and, not wanting to waste time climbing its trunk, jumped up into the air and grabbed ahold of the nearest branch. And her timing was nearly perfect, as the panther chose the same moment to pounce at her, jaws parted wide and aiming to close around any part of her body they could catch.

The good news was that Gaz's leap saved her life, as the panther fell short of her torso or legs. The bad news was that it did manage to clasp its jaws in a vice-like grip on the back of her loincloth.

"GAH!" Gaz yelped in sudden pain, as she quickly learned the hard way that wedgies were just as painful for girls as they were for boys. And the panther wasn't looking ready to let go of its prey any time soon. Instead, it planted itself and reared back, jaws still locked on Gaz's loincloth, tightening its hold and pulling Gaz back. Gaz, in turn, was gripping to the tree branch as hard as she could, causing it to bend further and further towards the ground. Something would have to give, sooner or later.

And something did. There was a sudden tearing noise, and the next thing Gaz knew, the grip the panther had on her lower body disappeared. Without that additional weight, she wasn't heavy enough to keep the branch bent as far as it was. As such, it suddenly snapped back up, and the shock of the sudden movement caused her to let go of the branch; altogether, this meant that she was launched like a rock from a slingshot, and went flying into the air.

Gaz tumbled over and over as she was shot even further into the jungle, before she came to a sudden stop, slamming into a tree. She lay almost comically flattened against it for a moment, before sliding down to end in a heap at its base.

"Urgh," she groaned as she shakily got to her feet, "That sucked. Can this day get any worse?"

It should be noted that a blatant temptation of fate such as that would have been a bad idea even without Gaz's newfound awful luck. But in any case, her question was immediately answered, as she suddenly noticed a strong draft around her waist. Confused, she looked down, and blushed brightly enough to be seen from space, as she saw that her loincloth had been torn off (thus explaining the tearing sound she'd heard and how the panther had lost its grip on her), completely exposing her most private parts for all to see. Squealing in embarrassment, Gaz instinctively clasped her hands over her crotch and quickly backed up to press against the tree she'd just collided with in order to conceal her butt.

And as she cowered there, shivering in cold and panic, trying to figure out how she could cover herself back up, she failed to notice the large hornet's nest dangling from the tree branches above her. Her impact into the tree had shaken it quite a bit, causing several of its inhabitants to emerge, trying to see what had disturbed them. As they did, a sweet scent caught their attention, and they began drifting down towards its source — specifically, the dried berry juice that Gaz was still covered in.

It wasn't until the first of the hornets landed on Gaz's stomach that she even noticed them. Instinctively, she swatted at them, but this just angered them, and she yelped in pain as they started stinging her.

"Damn it!" she growled, swatting even harder, though failing to hit most of the hornets, which just retaliated by stinging even more. In her wild swinging, Gaz ended up smacking the tree several times, shaking the nest more and more, until it finally broke loose and fell, crashing right into her head and splitting open.

Gaz screamed as an entire swarm of hornets emerged from the destroyed nest and descended on her, stinging just about every inch of her skin that was exposed to them… which, given the loss of her loincloth, was a considerably large amount. Gaz smacked and swung her fists as fast and as hard as she could, but somehow kept managing to miss most of the hornets, only succeeding in making them all angrier and causing them to sting her even more.

Blinded with panic, anger, and most of all pain, Gaz ran as fast as her wounded leg would let her. She didn't even know where she was running to, she was just hoping that it took her away from the hornets. But, in keeping with her luck so far, the hornets weren't willing to let her go so easily, and were easily able to keep up with her thanks to her limp.

This continued on for several more minutes, until Gaz burst through a bush and suddenly felt the ground disappear from beneath her feet. She had reached the top of a small hill directly overlooking a river, with a steep incline on the side facing the water. An incline she now found herself tumbling down uncontrollably, having been moving too fast to have a chance to catch herself in time.

Gaz rolled and bounced down the hill, seemingly smacking into every single rock and root sticking out of the ground along the way. Finally, she reached the bottom of the hill, and rolled straight into the river. It was deep enough that she was quickly submerged, and the current was fast enough to quickly carry her away from where she'd entered the water. The hornet swarm hovered over that spot for a few moments, before giving up and flying away.

Meanwhile, further downstream, Gaz resurfaced, gasping for breath and coughing out a lungful of water. Treading water purely on instinct for a minute or two, she forced herself to calm down, and angled herself so that she'd float as she was carried by the current, without having to put any effort into it. As she floated, at this point having absolutely no idea where she was in relation to the village, she let her pulse and breathing return to normal, while her mind desperately went over everything that had happened to her.

So, to recap — she had a busted-up leg, probably more cuts and bruises than she could count, dozens of hornet sting-induced welts, she was half naked, and now she was floating down a river in the middle of the jungle with no idea where she was. Yeah, that sounded like a complete list of all the crap she'd been through. Well, at least the cool water was soothing her wounds; that was a plus, however minor.

She was just readjusting her focus towards figuring out what she'd be able to cover herself with once she got back onto shore, when she noticed a noise in the distance, growing steadily closer. Frowning in confusion, and just a little bit of concern in light of everything else, she raised her head out of the water and tilted it to the side to try and better catch the sound. As it got closer, she realized it was the sound of water rushing.

Rushing and _falling_.

Eyes once again snapping open in panic, Gaz's head shot up to look downriver, and was greeted by the sight of what was very clearly a waterfall. And she was heading right for it.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, before desperately attempting to swim towards the shore. However, this close to the fall, the current was too strong. It held her fast, and carried her right over the edge.

Gaz screamed as she fell, only for it to be cut off with a grunted gasp as she came to sudden halt. Looking around frantically, she saw that she was hanging from a small tree growing horizontally out of the cliff face covered by the waterfall. Specifically, it had snagged the back of her fur top, leaving her dangling in midair.

"Okay," she breathed, forcing herself to stay calm, "I can deal with this. I just need to figure out how to swing myself around to one of the sides of the cliff. Then I can climb back up and-AH!"

Gaz's attempts at saving herself were immediately quashed, as there was a snapping sound, and she was once again falling. Fortunately, being caught on the tree had shortened the fall enough that the resulting impact with the bottom of the waterfall didn't kill or even injure her, it just stunned her for a moment. As the current continued on carrying her downriver, she broke the surface and once again coughed and gasped for breath.

"Gah, what now? Did the stupid tree break or some… oh, come on!" Gaz's complaints trailed off into a shout of outraged surprise. There, several feet away and floating quite separately from her, was her top. Apparently, the tree branch hadn't broken; instead, it had torn through the back of her top, not only causing her to fall but also allowing it to slip free of her body upon impacting the water.

Gaz immediately began swimming towards her top, intent on reclaiming it — she could always tie off the pieces of the back, after all. And the fact was, she was facing enough potential humiliation if caught _half_ naked, she couldn't stand the thought of being rendered _fully_ naked.

But, her awful luck struck once more, as just before she could reach the top, the water around it exploded out as a shape came bursting out from underneath, quickly resolving into a rather large crocodile.

"AHHHH!" Gaz screamed, quickly turning around and sprint-swimming towards the nearest riverbank as fast as she could, not stopping until she was out of the water and scrambling up the small slope leading down towards the water. Once atop the slope, Gaz finally allowed herself to look back, and her panic quickly turned to surprise, annoyance, and finally anger.

The crocodile, it seemed, hadn't even noticed her. Instead, it appeared to have mistaken her top for a living thing, and easier prey, and had subsequently attacked it. Even now, it was thrashing about, trying to "kill" its target. Eventually, however, it seemed to realize its mistake, and dropped the top, which had since been torn to shreds. Gaz could only watch as her last remaining piece of clothing fell apart and disappeared beneath the surface of the water, the crocodile soon following.

"Stupid lizard," Gaz growled as she got to her feet, "As soon as I get home, I'm grabbing some spears and knives, then I'm coming back here and turning you into a bag!"

Rage vented for the moment, Gaz suddenly remembered her current predicament and once again turned red in embarrassment, wrapping her arms around herself.

She couldn't believe this. As bad as things had been before, at least her chest had had some cover, providing her at least some semblance of modesty, but now she was totally exposed! She couldn't imagine how she'd be able to live with the humiliation if anyone were to see her now — hell, she didn't even like sharing the communal bath with the other girls in the tribe! She would always just intimidate them all into avoiding it when she was using it. Mostly because, while she had reached the age where girls started developing breasts, hers hadn't really started coming in yet, leaving her at barely an A cup, something she was very self-conscious about.

"I can make cover," she reassured herself, "Just need to gather some leaves and vines or something. People will stare, sure, but if they say anything I'll just smash their faces in."

Mind set on what she was going to do, Gaz turned to walk away from the river and search the nearby plants for anything she could create makeshift clothes out of… and made it two steps before the ground she was on, which was really just barely solid mud, gave out underneath her, causing her to fall on her face and go sliding down the slope all the way back to the water's edge.

"Damnit!" she shrieked, spitting out mud. She tried to clamber back to her feet, only to slip again, crashing on her back.

While Gaz struggled just to stand up, only to repeatedly fall back down, she failed to notice that she was being watched. Up in the trees overlooking the river were several monkeys. They sat amongst the branches, staring intently down at where Gaz was flailing on the muddy slope.

Monkeys are fairly intelligent creatures, and thus, they recognized the girl below them. She was the Purple Demon, the human girl-child who hunted their kind not for food or even honorable sport, but for seemingly nothing else than the thrill of causing them pain. She would track and trap them, leaving them dangling from trees while she threw rocks, knives, and even arrows at them while they were totally defenseless. Over the years, she had become a great figure of fear for the monkeys and other animals of the jungle.

Yet here she was, with no weapons, no nets, not even those coverings the humans all wore for some reason. Not only that, she was splashing about in the mud like a newborn that hadn't learned how to walk yet. Overall, she didn't look terrifying. If anything, she was making them all laugh.

The monkeys chattered amongst themselves, discussing the situation. They quickly reached consensus that, seeing her like this, she didn't seem like much of a threat. But, she had caused their kind so much heartbreak and pain, they couldn't just leave her be. No, she had to be punished for her sins.

While the monkeys were having their debate, Gaz was finally managing to make her way up the slope. Having eventually realized that the muddy ground wasn't strong enough to support her standing weight, she had started crawling her way up. Cresting the top of the slope, she kept crawling until she was well away from it, not wanting to risk falling back down yet again. Once she felt the ground beneath her firm up, she finally allowed herself to stop, and let her sore limbs go out from beneath her, falling flat against the hard earth. As she sat there, groaning at the especially strong ache in her banged up leg, she reflected on the fact that, in addition to all her other problems, she was now covered almost entirely in mud.

"Can this day just be over already?" she moaned. And that was when a shadow fell over her, and she heard the sound of several small feet moving around her. Eyes snapping open, Gaz looked up in a panic, but calmed down at the sight that greeted her. She'd been worried that someone had come across her, but it was just a bunch of monkeys.

"Shoo. Beat it," she said, waving an arm halfheartedly at them, "I'm not in the mood. Go away."

The monkeys' only response was to tilt their heads, staring down at her inquisitively. Gaz growled; the last thing she needed right now was a bunch of filthy animals messing with her. As annoying as it would be to do so with her bare hands, given the lack of weapons anywhere nearby, she'd just have to kill a few of them in order to scare away the rest.

"Okay, you know what?" she said lowly, as she pushed herself back up to her hands and knees, "After everything I've been through today, I think I'm actually going to enjoy this-"

She was cut off as the monkeys suddenly all screeched as one. And before her ears could even finish ringing from this animalistic battle cry, the monkeys rushed her. The group tackle knocked her over, landing on her back, before the monkeys swarmed over her.

"Hey, let go!" Gaz shouted, as the monkeys took firm holds on her limbs, and lifted her into the air, carrying her over to a nearby tree. She struggled as hard as she could, but she was still too weak from all her recent exertions to put up a proper fight.

"I said let me go, you furry fucks!" she screamed, "I'm going to rip your fucking hides off and sew them back on inside out! I'm gonna… huh?"

Gaz trailed off as she felt something suddenly slip around her wrist and tighten. Managing to turn her head, she saw that a vine had been wrapped and knotted around her wrist; moments later, she felt the same thing on her other wrist, and turned her gaze around in time to see another monkey repeating the process on that hand.

"What are you doinnnnnnnAAAAAHHHH!" Gaz screamed as she suddenly found herself rapidly ascending into the air. If she had looked up, she would have seen that a pair of monkeys were holding onto the other ends of the vines and were running up the trees, carrying her by extension. They ran up and up, until they reached the lowest hanging branches. They then stopped, bringing Gaz to a sudden stop as well, before tying the vines off to two different branches.

While Gaz's head spun from the sudden flight and even more sudden stop, she swung in the air like a pendulum, but only for a few moments. Because meanwhile, on another tree facing the one she was dangling from, another pair of monkeys had ascended to the branches directly opposite the ones she had been hung up from. They were each carrying another vine, each of which had been tied up to form an organic lasso. The monkeys swung them around and then launched them through the air at Gaz. They each found their mark, managing to wrap around her ankles. Gaz barely had a chance to register that before the monkeys pulled back on the vines, before tying them off to two different branches.

Gaz was now being suspended in a horizontal spread-eagle, a good dozen feet above the ground. She struggled and squirmed, but the vine restraints were too tight, and her limbs too stretched out. She could barely budge them, let alone get enough leverage to break free. She looked up to glare at the monkeys, seeing that a few dozen had gathered in the branches of both trees, and were all staring down at her.

"When I get free of here, I'm going to kill every last one of-ah!" Once again, Gaz's threats were cut off, this time as a small rock suddenly hit her on the forehead, having been thrown by one of the monkeys. And even as she was blinking the resulting tears of pain from her eyes, the rest of the monkeys took up the apparent call to arms, raining rocks and sticks down on her.

This went on for a few minutes that felt like an eternity, before finally stopping. When it did, Gaz was covered in cuts and bruises visible even through the mud covering her. Miraculously, however, these were all superficial; the barrage hadn't caused her any damage more serious than a split lip, which was already swelling. Despite the pain now radiating throughout her body, Gaz took a deep, calming breath.

" _Okay,_ " she thought, " _If they've stopped throwing things at me, that either means they're out of ammo, or they got bored. Either way, they're probably bound to let me go now…_ "

And that was when something foul smelling hit her square in the stomach.

"What the… oh, fuck! Gah!" Gaz exclaimed, as she got a good look at the big, steaming monkey turd sitting on her stomach. However, her disgust quickly turned to panic, as she realized what was about to happen… just in time for a rain of monkey feces to fall on her, soon covering her from head to toe. If there was any bright spot to this, the fact that her eyes were normally closed anyway meant that at least she didn't have to worry about any of the feces getting in them. Mercifully, this barrage was much shorter than the rock and stick one, but that didn't lessen any of the disgust that Gaz was feeling at being covered in monkey shit.

Nor did she feel any better when she noticed all the monkeys were leaving… _without_ untying her.

"Hey, where are you going?!" she demanded, "You had your fun, now let me go! Get back here and untie me! Come back!"

But the monkeys didn't heed her, disappearing into the trees. They'd hurt and degraded the Purple Demon, and now they were leaving her to rot among the trees — whether she could escape or not was not their concern.

And so it was, that Gaz was left suspended in the air, covered in mud and dung that was slowly drying and hardening in the high afternoon sun. Which also had the added displeasure of making the dung somehow smell even worse than it already did. The stench got bad enough that she ended up vomiting until she was dry heaving; thankfully, she could still turn her head enough to let the bile fall to the side, rather than spilling over her. So, there was that, at least.

And as Gaz continued to try and break free, while simultaneously trying very hard to avoid another round of retching, she failed to notice the mosquito flying up to one of the few still remaining clean patches of skin on her head. It then promptly bit her.

Call it a universal counterbalance, or just call it an ironic coincidence, but this bite had a similar-but-opposite reaction to the one Dib received earlier. Like with him, she was spared a slow and painful malaria-induced death, and instead had a one-in-a-million reaction. But hers wasn't one to be grateful for — while some quirk in her biology was going to keep her from getting sick, it did nothing to stop a massive allergic reaction from kicking in, the tissue throughout her head swelling in response to the bite. In just a few seconds, her head was about as big as Dib's had been with the tumor, maybe even larger.

Also, though this wouldn't become apparent for some time yet, there would be side effects to this, much as there had been for Dib. Just as his tumor had blocked the blood and protein flow to his penis and hindered its growth, this rapid growth of Gaz's head just happened to be blocking the flow to and growth of her breasts. As she grew older, Gaz would find that her chest would remain virtually flat; while not something she generally focused on, it would be a source of mockery aimed at her by other girls for a very long time.

In the meantime, though, Gaz had other problems to worry about. Aside from the pain caused by her head suddenly swelling up, which understandably had her focus at the moment, there was the fact that said swelling added quite a bit of weight to the upper half of her body. This put added pressure on the vines holding her, especially the ones on her wrists, which strained for a few minutes before finally snapping simultaneously. Gaz had exactly two seconds to realize what had happened and feel excitement about it, before she remembered how gravity worked, and it kicked in.

Gaz screamed as she fell, but not directly down. Due to the other vines still tied around her ankles, she instead swung like a pendulum… and ended up slamming right into the tree. Seconds later, the remaining vines snapped as well, and Gaz once again found herself sliding down a tree to land in an undignified heap at its base.

Groaning at the newest pains to hit her, Gaz shakily got to her feet, and reached up to rub her sore head. And her eyes widened in shock as she felt how swollen it was.

"Wha… what happened to my head?! Why the hell is it so big?!" she shrieked, "Goddammit! Motherfu-"

"Daughter? Is that you?" a familiar voice suddenly said. Freezing, Gaz slowly turned her head to see her father standing nearby, wearing his usual garb — a long fur cloak and face-concealing wooden mask — and pushing a cart full of plants and herbs. Apparently he'd been out on one of his regular trips to pick up natural ingredients for his potions and tonics. Not that Gaz really registered any of that, being more focused on the fact that she'd finally found help.

"Dad!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around herself in embarrassment, but still feeling hope blossom, "Thank goodness! Help me!"

"What in the world do you think you're doing?" Membrane demanded angrily, not seeming to hear his daughter's plea, "Running around naked like an infant, covering yourself in… I don't even want to know what that is. Your brother is supposed to be the crazy one! Well, what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"

Gaz could only stare at her father in shock, mouth opening and closing repeatedly as she tried to understand his reaction, her hope shattering. Did he actually think she was like this on _purpose?!_

"But, I," she stammered, trying to form a coherent response, "Elephant, panther, hornets, crocodile, monkeys…"

"Stop that gibberish!" Membrane snapped, before sighing in disgust, "Is _this_ what you do when you wander off into the jungle every day? As delusional as your brother is, at least his actions make some kind of sense. But this? This is just foolishness! And I won't accept it from any child of mine."

"But I didn't want to do this, it just happened!" Gaz said, near-hysterically, "And look at my head! Do you think I did this to myself?"

"It is impossible for you to have gotten that filthy accidentally. And as for your head, it's clearly just an allergic reaction to everything you've covered yourself in," Membrane replied, concern lacking from his voice, "I'll treat it once we're back in the village. Which is that way, so get moving."

Gaz looked in the direction her father was pointing, at least a little relief hitting her at realizing how soon she could finally get home. And then she realized the implication of what he'd just said.

"Wait, I can't go there like this!" she protested, "Don't you have anything I can clean myself with? Or spare clothes? Anything?!"

"No, you'll be going _exactly_ like that," Membrane said firmly, "I want everyone to see what a disgrace you've made of yourself. Maybe that will break this habit of yours."

"But it's not a habit! I-"

"No talking back! Now move!" he snapped, tone leaving no room for argument. And, quite frankly, he was the only person she could never bring herself to even try and fight against.

And so, that was how Gaz found herself slowly marching into and through the village, still completely naked and coated with mud and dung, trying pitifully to cover herself with her arms, and her swollen head throbbing painfully in time with her still-sore leg, her father's glare as he followed behind burning into her back. All of which was bad enough, without the fact that damn near the entire village population seemed to be present to watch her walk of shame, and she could hear the comments already flying.

"Oh my gods, is that Gaz? Why is she naked?"

"EW! Who cares about that, what's she covered in?"

"Ha! Look at how flat she is! She looks more like a boy!"

"Yeah, a really _ugly_ boy."

"Has her head always been that big?"

Gaz's eyes welled up with tears of shame, as each jeer tore away another scrap of her sense of superiority. There would be no coming back from this, she just knew it.

And on another plane of existence, Anansi looked upon his work with a wide smile on his lips/mandibles. It was safe to say that this had turned out pretty well. Dib was on his way to becoming a well loved (in _every_ sense of the word) hero of the village, while Gaz would now be reduced to a laughingstock. After years of being mocked for his head size and beliefs, Dib now had a perfectly normal anatomy (aside from parts the ladies would call "exceptional") and was going to go on to be known as the "Great Hero". Gaz, meanwhile, now lacked the fear and respect of her fellow villagers that she'd been coasting by on, and they would never be intimidated by her again. Meanwhile, her father would never determine the actual cause of her head's deformity nor its connection to her flat chest, and would thus never be able to fix either, leaving her forever mocked for both. And worst off all, no one would ever forget the sight of her walking through the village covered in feces, tainting her forever with the nickname "Dung Girl".

Yes, the Spider was quite content. He had played a magnificent trick, completely switching around this karmic balance. And he was sure it was going to make for one hell of a story, for a long, long time…

**Author's Note:**

> Told you all it would be outside my normal range. Hope you managed to enjoy it regardless.
> 
> Please review!


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